This is the story of a very inspirational 98 year old Indian World War II and army veteran whom I met in Bengaluru. He led an amazingly difficult life but was still a very cheerful and happy person. His story is truly uplifting and touched everyone he met.

by PS Prakruthi

In the month of May 2008, I made another cherished trip to India. Unlike other trips where I would mostly spend time in my grandmother’s home, talk and laugh with my relatives and friends, explore the local areas and tour the famous sites of the South, during this trip my family and I went to see the awe-inspiring Himalayas. Having lived and grown up in the U.S., to touch the soil of the Rishis and visit Vyasa’s cave, see the origin of the Saraswati River, and visit the very last village at the Indian border was overwhelming that cannot be articulated. I felt at peace and rejuvenated. Later, I went back for a few days to Bengaluru, to Vyalikaval extension, 4th main road. What more could this visit have in store?

Down the road, adjacent to my grandparents’ home is an old nondescript house. Among all the bustle and clatter of busy the 2nd main road, living alone, not in the nondescript house, but in its 10ft x 10ft shed, was a quiet and elderly gentleman. This man sat serenely in a small chair with a japa mala in one hand quietly doing japa. The shed was extremely austere, but the gentleman, looking younger than his 98 years, always wore a tranquil smile. He carried a worn pocket-sized copy of the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit with him always. If you happened to notice him, and took time to ask, he would tell you his compelling and unbelievable life story.

Born on May 5, 1910, in what was known as British Malaya, he had a peaceful existence until he was 12 years old. Without warning, his parents were tragically killed in their home by a bomb. A war was going on then and bombings had become commonplace. The young child had been to school and came home to find his parents killed and his home destroyed. This horrific incident sent him into shock and he had to be taken care of by a neighbour. His mind had erased the memory of who he was and he could not recall his name or that of his family and life. While he was thus recuperating, the British came in and without a hint took him away to serve in the British army. At the age of 12 he lost his parents, his home and his freedom.

“The Britishers asked me my name and when I told them that I did not remember, they gave me one,” he said on the day I met him in 2008, sitting behind a desk beside a picture of Shirdi Sai Baba. “So, they said ‘OK, from now on you will be called Shankar Rao,’”. Ripped from the only family and home he ever knew, Shankar Rao at the age of 12 was put to work in the British military. He had to live and move with the British army soldiers, wherever they were encamped and engage whomever they battled with. Rao said that he and other Indian children were used as workers to help in the battlefields, helping to load ammunition and to be at the service of the British soldiers during battles.

When he turned 14, Rao was then forced to fight in the British army. He fought in battles of wars that he knew little of much less why he was fighting. He fought in Burma; he describes how, as a child soldier, he walked with other children soldiers from Singapore to Thailand and from Burma to Manipur to Assam. In Burma and Thailand he fought under the command of Lord Wavell, the Field Marshall for his unit. When they had reached Assam by foot, the British took the Indian soldiers to Kabul and then Kandahar. Then the British decided that he would fight for them in Europe during World War II.

Having survived the battles in Asia he was sent to fight in the Middle East, then onward to Tunisia, Africa, and finally, to the Italian warfront. Rao recalled how the British, Americans, and Russians had pushed the German forces back. He vividly remembered the Indian freedom fighters who were being held in the Andaman Islands being released. Among them was Subhash Chandra Bose, who was the leader of the Indian freedom forces. Rao animatedly described that he witnessed many of the unspeakable horrors that were prevalent in World War II. He sadly stated that there was so much blood and destruction that he had witnessed unceasingly since his childhood and now in the worldwide conflict that he became seriously ill. He was weak and in need of serious recuperation, his mind once again had come under the constant onslaught of violence. In 1944, with the war coming to a frenzied end, he was finally sent back to India with barely any strength, his body and mind exhausted and broken. He spent the next three months recuperating in the General Hospital in Delhi. Mercifully perhaps, some of the atrocities he had once again witnessed in the long war were erased from his memory.

I asked Rao how he was treated by the British who needed him and others like him to fight their wars. Rao said that the Indian soldiers were mistreated and discriminated against; there was a lot of racism, and in battle, that made things even more perilous. Rao recalled that the world and Indian history of that time lucidly, a unique historian that one would be hard pressed to find nowadays. He remembered pivotal moments not only in WW II but also in the quest for India’s people gaining their much fought for independence. He described how at that time he was in the hospital in Delhi, Subhash Chandra Bose was captured and his personal assistant SA Iyer was released. After his brief rest at the hospital, the British weren’t finished with him; he was sent to Jabalpur to work in the armoury making guns and weapons for the British. But by this time, India’s people had risen. Once again Rao would be called upon to fight and risk his well-being and life. But this time was different. Now he would finally be fighting for his own people and for his country. During the violence that marked the days of the Indian partition, Rao fought to defend India against Pakistan’s attacks. India was finally free of the British despot and so was he. He went on to defend India against China in 1964 when the Chinese attacked Indian Territory.

Rao served and sacrificed for his country again and again and was unsung, unheard of, and unknown. There are few Indians of my generation who know of or can comprehend it. I imagined him as a young boy, losing his family, forced to work and fight for the foreigners that were ruling his land and finally being able to fight for his own people. My journey to the Himalayas, to the borders of India, everything that I was able to see and revel in is only possible because of the tremendous sacrifice of heroes like Rao who fought to make freedom possible. Most of them are totally unheard of and their life stories cannot even be retold to the younger generation because so few are alive now who can tell it. So much has gone unrecorded. The history books banally repeat the same tired and prosaic litany of ‘events’.

Moreover, I was astonished to note that Rao told his story without any bitterness or contempt for those who had taken everything away from him and brought so much turmoil to his life. His eyes have compassion and understanding in them as he detailed his past tribulations and those of others he knew. In fact, if one had seen him one would not even guess that his life had been touched by anything untoward. One might wonder how this is possible – for a 98 year old man without any living family who has to live alone on his military pension and whose living arrangements are literally ascetic. He called his small room with a cot, a bookcase and a desk his home. There was no running water in the room, only one cold water faucet behind the shed where he took his bath. Yet, he never complained and looked happy and peaceful.

How, I wondered, can a person who had sacrificed and suffered so much, went totally unnoticed and unappreciated, who was elderly and alone, got that kind of contentment and insight? Rao himself provided the answer. He said his immense strength and implacable serenity came to him directly from a Higher source. He was a very devout man and he believed there was only good in this world. “Of course everything is fundamentally good,” he said, as though it should be obvious to everyone. “If you think everything is good, you yourself are God. Paramathma lives in you. “ I asked him if he had any family that he knows of, I was startled by his reply: “Everyone I meet is my family, whoever talks to me, I see them as a member of my family.” He said with a smile on his face. Rao firmly believed in the power of good thoughts and was constantly doing japa. “Instead of thinking nonsense, or gossiping, I do japa. Even when I have a few minutes with nothing to do or if I’m waiting for someone or something, I do japa.” He stated. Throughout his life, his unshakeable faith in God and his deep-rooted Hindu values kept him grounded and saved him from anguish and despair. “Certainly, that faith in Him is what has kept me so long and so well”.

I thanked Rao profusely for taking the time and effort to share his remarkable story with me; to this he replied “I am so happy to see a young person such as you, who wants to know and learn about our past. It is so important that everyone understand their history and past and not forget. For the present generation life is different; they want money and enjoyment, they care not for other things. But if everybody is willing to learn the world will be a beautiful place. God Bless you”.

And I do feel truly blessed that my remarkable journey which took me to the peaks of the Himalayas and down South to Bengaluru ended with my finding out about this extraordinary 98 year old veteran gentleman who personified sacrifice, kindness and everything our Hindu and Vedic knowledge embodies. My husband says Rao reminded him of a Kannada poem by D.V. Gundappa which means: “Let me be like a flower in the dense jungle that blooms and is fragrant even when no one is there to appreciate its beauty; let me bloom for the sake of the Lord.”

Shankar Rao passed away peacefully in his sleep on Vishu/ Tamil New Year day (April 14, 2009) at the age of 98. He donated his eyes and his body to hospitals for the benefit of others.

Is the possibility of a recession giving you sleepless nights? Do you feel like taking some time off and chilling out? How does a visit to a beach sound? Or would you like to involve yourself in some serious quizzing? What if you were offered the chance of doing both at the same time? Sounds interesting???

T. A. Pai Management Institute’s annual B-School fest, Atharva invites you to participate in the Quiz on the Beach (QOTB) to be held at Kaup Beach, Udupi, Karnataka. QOTB is held on the shores of the magical Arabian Sea with an old British built lighthouse serving as a backdrop. So pack your bags and come down to Kaup Beach for some serious fun!!!

I am P.Rangachary. I am a retired IAS officer from Chennai and i USED to be an avid reader of your blog for a long time. I used to personally know the sadasivams and later on my brother was an employee of The Hindu and we were lucky to attend a few talks R.K.Narayan gave.

I got hooked on to your blog when i was browsing through the net a few years back and carefully tracked how you were writing. I used to silently read it week after week and enjoy it. But, It has been a long since you have put up a posting here. Why? What happened? For those who want to contribute, they can surely open their own blog. This is not a ayappa swamy Hundi or Dharma sathram nor is it rocket science for them to open their blog. It is not difficult.

This blog is ramblings with bellur and it is for you to ramble and people like me who are fans of yours, to read. The others will learn to ramble on their own blogs. They must learn to. It is an old indian adage to say that ‘the curry in the neighbours house is more tastier’. Similarly you are also getting these other outsiders to blog in your blog. Similarly, I used to be an avid reader of your blog till others started seeping in and the quality of writing and everything came down drastically. I was so disappointed that i decided to stop my weekly dosage of RwB. I have come back here after more then a year and i still don’t see you writing that much.

Pardon my ignorance or arrogance, but i think You have become lazy in the excuse of others contributing. Writing is a sadhana that you have taken up. You must stick to it. If you have any friends who are writers, you ask them and they will tell you how much one needs to be dedicated to a work like writing. I remember a great writer once when asked if someone else could write his books, he replied that the same someone else will also ask him if he could sleep with his wife, take over his property and so on and so forth. If you want to read others writing, you can go to their blogs. People like me (who used to be avid readers and fans of your writing) find it very disappointing to see you not writing. So, it is a kind request to you start again. I am sure you have many wonderful topics to write on. I will wait eagerly for the next posting and hopefully it will be from you.

I am not happy that you have got 3 lakh hits. If only you would have written, you would have 10 lakh by now. Let the other fellows go and write their own blogs. I can see that you are yourself encouraging others to write and contribute. It is not bad, but you will agree with me when i say that, the neighbourhood curry tastes nice, but only ONCE IN A WHILE. Overdosage of it can make you forget your own taste or even make you forget the very art of cooking. This is a sincere request from an old retired man. Do not spoil my fun i used to have , of reading this blog, by allowing others.

I hope you will not take me in the wrong sense. I am like a fatherly person to you. I hope to re-start my weekly reading of your blog and hopefully i will see some more of the exciting material i used to read here.

It was a summer in the late 1970s when I visited relatives in Madras (now Chennai) during my holidays. A family friend living in Kodambakkam told me that Kannada actor Rajkumar lived down the street. One evening I walked up to the actor’s house wondering whether I would get an opportunity to meet this revered star. My chances of seeing him at close quarters in Bangalore were slim with crowds thronging everywhere he went.

As I stood near the gate, a pack of dogs barked menacingly from the inside. Just as I begun to turn away a white car pulled up. The rear seat window rolled down and a friendly face smiled and inquired. It was the superstar himself! When I told him that I had come from Bangalore to see him, he got down from the car, signaled the maid to take the dogs away and invited me inside. It was a humid evening and Dr. Rajkumar looked visibly tired, perhaps after a long day of work.

He asked me to take a seat along with him in the verandah. He seemed completely at ease and relaxed as he asked me about school, hobbies, interests etc. as we sipped coffee. He then asked me if I would like to meet his family for which I readily agreed. He took me upstairs and introduced me to his mother, a petite elderly woman who stood with folded hands. At once, I understood where he got his humility. I noticed a number of children in the household and asked him who they were. He explained that they lived as a joint family and some of them were his nephews and nieces.

He introduced me to his wife and children and took me to the balcony. His face lit up in pride as he pointed to a portrait of his father and spoke of his theatrical abilities. He showed me some of the trophies that he had won for his movies. Throughout the time, he never showed an inkling of inconvenience or intrusion of his privacy. We talked and talked for 45 minutes. As it was getting a little dark, I told him that I needed to go.

He was about to follow me downstairs when I politely told him that I could find my way out and that he should not take the trouble of getting down the stairs. He replied that it was just good manners to see off a guest all the way. He even opened the gate, shook hands and wished me good luck with my studies. It was truly a magical experience! Over the decades, I was fortunate to meet several accomplished people from around the world. However, the childhood encounter with Dr. Rajkumar remains etched forever in my mind for his extraordinary simplicity and kindness. He had the heart to set aside his own plans for the evening to make a child happy! Only a sincerely caring person would do that. He was truly a Bangarada Manushya!

Rajkumar was born on April 24, 1929. He passed away on April 12, 2006.

We often come across people after speaking to whom we feel so drained of our energy! Perhaps we can call them ‘energy-vampires’! They keep talking to us endlessly about themselves and their woes and constantly complaining on somebody or something that they seldom allow us to talk in between and make a contribution to the talk. It becomes a monologue rather than a dialogue. In spite of getting bored and irritated with such people, we continue to give them our precious time thinking that we are in some way obliged to listen to them. S/he may be our friend, our sibling or our own parent, especially mothers, who go on talking about their past difficulties or their present poor relationship with another child or in-law or about anything else that least interests us. But we simply surrender to them and continue to give them our time.

STOP! We are in no way obliged to listen to them always! It is fine to give our ear to somebody who may badly want to share his/her difficulty to lighten their emotional burden. We are doing a good job by helping them to relieve themselves of some life problem that they had been suppressing all these days. In fact at the end of the session they feel so grateful to us that we were patient enough to listen to their woes and perhaps even gave a few valuable suggestions to overcome those troubles. It is perfectly laudable.

But not so laudable is lending our time to listen to the same old stories of our own kith and kin day in and day out! We have every right to withdraw ourselves from such people because we are ending up as victims ourselves! This surely is an abuse on our time! Please understand that as adults we all have our own priorities set and we need time and energy to reach these goals. We can not let someone eat up all our time and constantly weep on our shoulders. We have an obligation to help them realize that it can not go on and on and that we will not be available to them henceforth to discuss things that may not have any solutions and that we are all obliged to cope with certain of these difficulties that have no visible end. In fact we are doing a disservice to them by developing a kind of dependency in them upon us.

Once this is stated matter-of-factly the ‘energy-vampire’ realizes that each one of us adults is responsible for our own upliftment or digging our own graves! We all have to draw energy from our own inner resources and help ourselves out of difficulties or learn some coping strategies. They need to very clearly see that their continuous outpours everyday with us is creating distances in our own relationship with other family members. Others (our spouse, our kids) have an equal right to demand our time, all of which is currently being drained by this particular person. You can not let other relationships get damaged because of your misplaced priorities on this person’s woes. Please wake up now and keep people at right distances and allow yourself the precious time and space that is very much required for your own growth.

Take a flat bottomed baking dish and grease it well with butter. Boil the milk and keep aside. Pre heat the oven till slightly warm. When the milk is slightly cold add the eggs, vanilla essence, flour and sugar and beat well till there are no lumps. Pour a thin layer of this mixture into the baking dish and let it set in the warm oven till it forms a base. Take out the dish and arrange the Jelebis in it. Pour the rest of the mixture over the Jelebis and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes till the custard sets and is golden brown on top. The custard should be moist and not dry. Garnish with sliced pistachios.

Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together. Cream the butter and sugar together in a suitable bowl. Add the beaten eggs, orange essence and mix well. Fold in the flour a little at a time. Add a little milk if the mixture is too thick. Pour into a greased and floured cake tin and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or till the cake is cooked and brown on top. Take a sheet of thick brown paper and sprinkle a little water on it. Sprinkle sugar liberally on it. While the cake is still hot, turn it out on to the dampened paper. Cut it horizontally in the center without going to the ends and open it out so that it becomes a square. Spread warm marmalade on it then roll it tightly with the paper to form a roll. Chill in the refrigerator for about 2 hours. When required cut into round slices and serve.

Roast the semolina with a teaspoon ghee till it gives out a nice aroma. Melt the sugar with the milk and condensed milk in a thick bottomed vessel. Add the grated coconut and mix well. Cook till the coconut is soft. Add the semolina, essence, food colour and ghee and mix well. Simmer on low heat till the mixture becomes thick and leaves the sides of the vessel. Pour on to a greased plate and cut into squares.

Powder the sugar and keep aside. Roast the cashew nuts lightly then dry grind in a blender till smooth. In a thick-bottomed pan, melt the powdered sugar with ¼ cup water, boiling only once. Reduce heat and mix in the ground cashew nuts. Cook on low heat for 2 minutes then take it down. Remove from heat and pour on to a greased plate. Flatten with a wooden spoon or rolling pin. Cut into squares or diamond shapes.

Melt the sugar with the milk and condensed milk in a thick bottomed vessel. Add the desiccated coconut and mix well. Cook till the coconut is soft. Add the chopped almonds, cashew nuts, walnuts, raisins, vanilla essence and ghee and mix well. Simmer on low heat till the mixture becomes thick and leaves the sides of the vessel. Pour on to a greased plate and spread with a wooden spoon. When slightly cool cut into squares.